Stepping into the Elite ― Trajectories of Social Achievement in India, France, and the United States

This book is the English translation of the French title, Entrer dans l'elite: parcours de reussite en France, en Inde et aux Etats-Unis. In this book, the author highlights the particular way in which upwardly mobile people in India, France and the United States-countries embodying three distinct stratification systems-make sense of their experience of shifting from one social class to another. Given that people draw upon particular cultural tools or repertoires to analyze their world and situate themselves in it, the author identifies the extent to which narratives of 'success' varies from one country to another. He argues that for any study on social mobility, it is important to take into account national contexts along with associated levels of analysis. In order to account satisfactorily for the way mobility is experienced, the author argues, identifying national repertoires of evaluation and institutional specificities is a decisive, yet insufficient step. Achievement narratives, the author concludes, are the result of a composite influence of the cultural repertoires and the dominant ideologies present in one's immediate context.

Jules Naudet is Research Fellow, CNRS

Renuka George is an independent translator